I'm Back! Classroom Reveal and Freebies!!

Wow. I don't think I've ever been gone this long before. It's a combination of life is crazy, back to school is exhausting, and no internet at the new house. Boo it sucks. I've been using my phone as a hot spot and I think I hit my data limit by checking on the 300+ blog posts I missed on Blog Lovin' since about mid-August. I didn't even stop by for Farley's September Currently! Well, I am back for a bit. I have a few things in the works (ie. some Fall Word Work and Fall Math Centre packs) and have some freebies planned for ya as well. Stay tuned! For today though I am finally going to do my classroom reveal! I am at a new school but it is a PERMANENT job, which means that next June, I don't have to pack up all my stuff and move it out again. Woo hoo! I only had a short time before school started to get things set up, so I did a lot of hiding junk in drawers/cupboards so everything looked organized on the outside. As school has begun, I've been slowly tackling each project and I'm becoming happier and happier with my room. Everything is finding a spot and things are slowly falling into place. Here's a peak into my classroom...

Here's my little bulletin board in the hallway. I love this colourful sock monkey accents! Too cute!!

This is the spot next to my door, near the front of the classroom. The white tubs are my students' cubbies. They keep their pencil boxes and belongings in there, seeing as we have tables. I like this system. No desks to keep clean. I numbered the tubs to match their book boxes. This works well. We also have our mailboxes on top.

This bulletin board houses our birthdays, tooth chart, and star of the day. The star gets to be line leader, teacher helper, and bring show and tell. Easy classrom job/show and tell schedule set up.

Next up is our carpet area. We're finding the carpet a bit small for our 23 buddies, so we can't do as much work at the carpet as I would like. We tend to do a bit more at our desks.

Here's our monthly calendar.

By the carpet I have our season and weather charts. I ended up moving that book shelf out of the way because we couldn't see the weather chart clearly.

This is my favourite spot. The classroom library! It has the only window in the classroom, my adorable pink ABC rug from Target, and my newest addition--end table and stools from IKEA. The kids love that spot! There is always someone sitting on the stools. I'm thinking of eventually setting up a few more of those tables around the room--great for math games or word work stations!

Here's a little spot to display our author of the month. I always start the year with Kevin Henkes. I find his stories a bit long and he has some very unique vocabulary, but it's a great way to build stamina and start book discussions with these youngins.

 
Here's our word wall. It's blank to start with, but we add words as the year goes on. On the counter are a few more library tubs and the students' book boxes.

This is a spot where I can display student work. These faces are something they did in June last year. They have a transition day where the Kindergartens go visit the Grade 1 teachers for an hour. I was lucky that I got a sub that day so I could go visit them as well. I had to add happy faces for some of my new students who weren't there in Kindergarten.

Here's my teacher corner. My desk, my computer, some storage shelves, my bulletin board of important documents. My little oasis. Granted I don't spend much time here after attendance is done, but it does house important things I need daily!

The grey plastic towers house different work books/journals. The colourful tubs are toys for indoor recess/free time. The blue tubs are our word work stations. There's the only view of my tables. I have four sets of tables--two trapezoid tables to make a hexagon.

Here's a close up of our classroom promise that we made on our first day of school. It's missing a few self-portrait signatures, but still looks good. I refer to this ALL THE TIME. We are having some difficulty with sitting quietly at carpet time. I may have to bring out my listening chart soon.

Here's a very packed corner. This is my guided reading table--love that I have a horseshoe table this year!!

Here's a close up. These shelves house math manipulatives, math centres, math books, and math games.

This section of shelves has my word work centres, word work manipulatives, binders for our portfolios, and levelled home reading books.

This is the side of the room where the students hang their jackets/backpacks. That bulletin board on top is SO TALL, I had to climb on top of the shoe rack. Definitely not safe. Definitely never changing that board. Those four seasons posters will stay there until I retire. lol.

We made these math people the first week of school. I had seen some cute "Math About Me" posters on Pinterest, but I felt the kid faces/shoes were a little our of date. I made some new ones with, of course, adorable Melonheadz clipart.

These people turned out so cute!! They had to write the numbers for their age, their grade, people in their house, pets, teeth lost, and their favourite number. You can download this freebie {here}. Clipart from Melonheadz and KPM Doodles.

Here's something else new I started this year. Monthly "Weekend Journals". Each Monday (or Tuesday after a holiday) we write about something we did on the weekend. These will be great for showing year-long writing progress. We will put these in our portfolios. (A post about our portfolios will be in the near future.)

You can download these weekend journals for free from {here}. They contain ten different monthly title pages and four different writing page options. I love the checklist I include on the bottom. We go over it each time and I have the students self-check their own writing to see if they have a capital, punctuation, spaces, and sight words spelled correctly. Such a great visual.

Well that's it for now! I have to finish watching the Big Brother finale, then head off to bed! I promise I will be back soon. Thanks for stopping by! :)

Back to School Sale

This poor little bloggy is feeling so neglected, but unfortunately it's going to get worse before it gets better!! I've spent the last month packing, the last two days painting, and the next two days will be moving, unpacking, and settling into our new home. Then I only have THREE DAYS to turn this:

into a beautiful classroom where walls are beautifully decorated, everything is wonderfully organized, and magical things happen!! Three days. I can do it. EEEEEK! :S Then I'm off to Vegas for eight days with the fiance, sister-in-law, and her husband. Sure to be an exciting vacation! School doesn't start until September 3rd for teachers (Admin. Day and Meet the Teacher night) and 4th for kiddos.

I wanted to let you know that even though my body will be beyond busy the next two weeks (and I will be out of internet for a while, except my poor little iPhone), I will still be here in spirit and I am still participating in the big Back to School Sale at TpT!! Everything in my store will be 20% off and if you use the awesome coupon code BTS13 you get an extra 8% off. Click the graphic to go fill up your shopping cart! Enjoy! Can't wait to see what fun purchases you are making this year.

Thanks Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs for the cute graphic!

If you have already gone back to school, good job! Hope it started off well. If you don't go back until September like me, enjoy these last few days of vacation!!!! Cheers!

Birthday Sale!

It's my birthday today! In celebration, everything in my TpT store will be 20% off for today and tomorrow. Hurry up, the sale ends tomorrow at midnight!

August Currently

Time to link up with Farley from Oh' Boy 4th Grade for this month's currently. I can't believe it's August already. I still have another month before I go back to school, but this month is going to be insane! I have to move houses, set up a brand new classroom, and go to Vegas for a week (ok, that's not a must... it's a want... hehe). It's going to be busy! Here's what's up with me today:

So this has been one of the busiest and most exciting summers ever! Not only are we moving this summer, to big a piece of property where we will eventually build our dream house... but we also just got engaged this week! It was a total shock to me! I mean, we've been together for four years and I've been hinting for the past year, but I never thought he actually got the hints! ;) hehe. Hoping to have a quiet little backyard wedding at our new property next summer. This year is just going to keep getting busier! :)

Well that's it for now... I'm in need of some puppy playtime. Enjoy your evening!

Winner!

Congrats to the winner of my 700 follower giveaway--Amy! Amy, check your email for more info!

Thanks to everyone who entered the contest! I feel bad now for making you countdown how many days of summer are left... Especially those who go back next week!! Oh boy! Well enjoy the rest of your summer and I'll be back again soon! Toodles!

Hall Pass Freebies and Where Are We? Mini-Posters {Plus a Giveaway!}

If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen this picture of my awesome Oriental Trading loot that came in the mail last week. I got some awesome Dr. Seuss cut outs, some fun fish counters, an inflatable campfire (have been dying for this forever!!), a cute treasure box, a fun word work centre, tooth keeper necklaces (144 for $7.25!!), and some bright colourful lanyards.

The lanyards I bought because I wanted to make some hallway passes. I like the idea of a lanyard when students go to the bathroom because they don't have to hold on to it while they go! Yuck! :) The pack I bought has 6 fun, bright colours. I made two bathroom passes, a telephone pass, and a water fountain pass.

The other two I used for a fire drill class last. I saw this idea on Pinterest, to keep the lanyard by my door and have my class list on the back, so it's easy to grab when I'm heading out the door.

The final lanyard I made for myself is a classroom management trick I'm going to try next year. My new school is a K-9 school, so we have the juniour high sports teams and our school mascot is a Bengal. Well I just happened to have a cute stuffed tiger (an adopted pet from WWF) that I decided was going to be Benji the Bengal. I'm going to pass out Benji Bucks to students for good behaviour. Those tickets will go into a bucket and each day I'll pull out a ticket and that student gets to be Benji's Caretaker. They get to keep the stuffy for the day and wear the badge. I think this will be a fun motivator for students!

Now, I know not many of you are going to have a "Benji Caretake" in your class, so I have added a "Nurse Pass" to the collection of hallway passes because I know a lot of schools down south have nurses. I have made these passes a freebie, so click {here} to download.

Now keeping with my fun, colourful theme, I wanted to create a set of "Where Are We?" posters to hang outside my new classroom. I just adore Melonheadz clipart and I had the perfect sets to create these fun posters. I always have my special helper change it whenever we head somewhere in the school. These posters are two-to-a-page. I print them out on cardstock, laminate them, and hang them on a ring outside my classroom door. Click the picture to check out the poster at TpT.

As I logged into blogger to put this post together, I glanced at my stats and noticed I had 700 followers! Wow! I can't believe my little blog reaches that many people! So as a thank you, I am having a little giveaway! For 700 followers, you can win 7 items! Your choice of any seven items from my TpT store. Just enter on the Rafflecopter before Sunday at midnight and you can win! Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Back to School Word Work Centres

I have put together a few back to school word work centres. I liked using these centres in September because they are so hands on and very engaging for these young learners. Each of my word work packs have similar activities, so when I switch them out my students still know how to do them. Stamping is a centre I have all year round. This back to school centre has a mini booklet of ten school words for students to stamp and colour.

The second centre was a favourite among my kiddos. Who doesn't love to use bingo dabbers? This centre has two sets of cards--lowercase letters and uppercase letters. I put one set out at a time with a recording sheet. Students choose a card, find the matching letter, and dab it! There are two lowercase and two uppercase recording sheets. One is in ABC order and one is random. You could also use the cards to play concentration or as a pocket chart matching activity.

The third centre uses mangetic letters (or foam letters or glitter stickers or included letters). There are a bunch of different sequences that students need to find the missing letters for. There are two possible recording sheets to go with the centre too.

The next centre is a short A word family sorts. Students sort picture cards by the correct word family. There is a cut and paste recording sheet to go with it.

The last centre in this pack is to practice initial sounds. There are 26 picture cards. Students choose a card, draw the picture on their recording sheet, and write the letter of the first sound. I make the recording sheet double-sided, so students have more spaces to draw and write.

If you are interested, you can check out this pack at TpT by clicking {here} or the picture below.